The Monthly Per Capita Consumer Expenditure (MPCE) data recently made available, from 1999-00 to 2022-23 indicates a significant upward trend in the consumer expenditure levels of households across both rural and urban areas. This trend, in the period between 2012-13 and 2022-23 has observed the double whammy combined effects of sporadically rising inflation and stagnating (real) wages, which in the last decade provide evidence of a worsened per capita standard and quality of life for most Indians (if understood in terms of the economic and consumption choices made available to households)